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5t I n c l p s &
h ud M
W
Ed es ob
eb
iti
Ap
on
ile
Learning
PHP, MySQL,
& JavaScript
WITH JQUERY, CSS & HTML5
Robin Nixon
FIFTH EDITION
Robin Nixon
The O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Learning PHP, MySQL & JavaScript, the
cover image, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.
While the publisher and the author have used good faith efforts to ensure that the information and
instructions contained in this work are accurate, the publisher and the author disclaim all responsibility
for errors or omissions, including without limitation responsibility for damages resulting from the use of
or reliance on this work. Use of the information and instructions contained in this work is at your own
risk. If any code samples or other technology this work contains or describes is subject to open source
licenses or the intellectual property rights of others, it is your responsibility to ensure that your use
thereof complies with such licenses and/or rights.
978-1-491-97891-7
[M]
For Julie
Table of Contents
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii
v
Logging In 29
Using FTP 29
Using a Program Editor 30
Using an IDE 31
Questions 33
3. Introduction to PHP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Incorporating PHP Within HTML 35
This Book’s Examples 37
The Structure of PHP 38
Using Comments 38
Basic Syntax 39
Variables 40
Operators 45
Variable Assignment 48
Multiple-Line Commands 50
Variable Typing 52
Constants 53
Predefined Constants 54
The Difference Between the echo and print Commands 55
Functions 55
Variable Scope 56
Questions 62
vi | Table of Contents
Breaking Out of a Loop 88
The continue Statement 89
Implicit and Explicit Casting 90
PHP Dynamic Linking 91
Dynamic Linking in Action 92
Questions 93
Table of Contents | ix
Creating a Login File 236
Connecting to a MySQL Database 237
A Practical Example 243
The $_POST Array 246
Deleting a Record 247
Displaying the Form 247
Querying the Database 248
Running the Program 249
Practical MySQL 250
Creating a Table 251
Describing a Table 251
Dropping a Table 252
Adding Data 253
Retrieving Data 254
Updating Data 255
Deleting Data 255
Using AUTO_INCREMENT 256
Performing Additional Queries 257
Preventing Hacking Attempts 258
Steps You Can Take 259
Using Placeholders 260
Preventing HTML Injection 263
Using mysqli Procedurally 264
Questions 266
x | Table of Contents
The list Attribute 285
The color Input Type 285
The number and range Input Types 285
Date and Time Pickers 286
Questions 286
Table of Contents | xi
Functions 321
Global Variables 321
Local Variables 321
The Document Object Model 322
Another Use for the $ Symbol 324
Using the DOM 325
About document.write 326
Using console.log 326
Using alert 326
Writing into Elements 326
Using document.write 327
Questions 327
Table of Contents | xv
Transformations 474
3D Transformations 475
Transitions 476
Properties to Transition 476
Transition Duration 477
Transition Delay 477
Transition Timing 477
Shorthand Syntax 478
Questions 480
xx | Table of Contents
login.php 689
profile.php 691
Adding the “About Me” Text 692
Adding a Profile Image 692
Processing the Image 692
Displaying the Current Profile 693
members.php 696
Viewing a User’s Profile 696
Adding and Dropping Friends 697
Listing All Members 697
friends.php 700
messages.php 703
logout.php 706
styles.css 708
javascript.js 710
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 777
The combination of PHP and MySQL is the most convenient approach to dynamic,
database-driven web design, holding its own in the face of challenges from integrated
frameworks—such as Ruby on Rails—that are harder to learn. Due to its open source
roots (unlike the competing Microsoft .NET Framework), it is free to implement and
is therefore an extremely popular option for web development.
Any would-be developer on a Unix/Linux or even a Windows/Apache platform will
need to master these technologies. And, combined with the partner technologies of
JavaScript, jQuery, CSS, and HTML5, you will be able to create websites of the caliber
of industry standards like Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail.
Audience
This book is for people who wish to learn how to create effective and dynamic web‐
sites. This may include webmasters or graphic designers who are already creating
static websites but wish to take their skills to the next level, as well as high school and
college students, recent graduates, and self-taught individuals.
In fact, anyone ready to learn the fundamentals behind responsive web design will
obtain a thorough grounding in the core technologies of PHP, MySQL, JavaScript,
CSS, and HTML5, and you’ll learn the basics of the jQuery and jQuery Mobile libra‐
ries, too.
xxiii
Organization of This Book
The chapters in this book are written in a specific order, first introducing all of the
core technologies it covers and then walking you through their installation on a web
development server so that you will be ready to work through the examples.
In the first section, you will gain a grounding in the PHP programming language,
covering the basics of syntax, arrays, functions, and object-oriented programming.
Then, with PHP under your belt, you will move on to an introduction to the MySQL
database system, where you will learn everything from how MySQL databases are
structured to how to generate complex queries.
After that, you will learn how you can combine PHP and MySQL to start creating
your own dynamic web pages by integrating forms and other HTML features. You
will then get down to the nitty-gritty practical aspects of PHP and MySQL develop‐
ment by learning a variety of useful functions and how to manage cookies and ses‐
sions, as well as how to maintain a high level of security.
In the next few chapters, you will gain a thorough grounding in JavaScript, from sim‐
ple functions and event handling to accessing the Document Object Model, in-
browser validation, and error handling. You’ll also get a comprehensive primer on
using the popular jQuery library for JavaScript.
With an understanding of all three of these core technologies, you will then learn how
to make behind-the-scenes Ajax calls and turn your websites into highly dynamic
environments.
Next, you’ll spend two chapters learning all about using CSS to style and lay out your
web pages, before discovering how the jQuery libraries can make your development
job a great deal easier. You’ll then move on to the final section on the interactive fea‐
tures built into HTML5, including geolocation, audio, video, and the canvas. After
this, you’ll put together everything you’ve learned in a complete set of programs that
together constitute a fully functional social networking website.
Along the way, you’ll find plenty of advice on good programming practices and tips
that can help you find and solve hard-to-detect programming errors. There are also
plenty of links to websites containing further details on the topics covered.
Supporting Books
Once you have learned to develop using PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, CSS, and HTML5,
you will be ready to take your skills to the next level using the following O’Reilly ref‐
erence books:
xxiv | Preface
• PHP in a Nutshell by Paul Hudson
• MySQL in a Nutshell by Russell Dyer
• JavaScript: The Definitive Guide by David Flanagan
• CSS: The Definitive Guide by Eric A. Meyer and Estelle Weyl
• HTML5: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
Preface | xxv
Using Code Examples
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We appreciate, but do not require, attribution. An attribution usually includes the
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Acknowledgments
I would like to once again thank my editor, Andy Oram, and everyone who worked
so hard on this book, including Jon Reid, Michal Špaček, and John Craig for their
comprehensive technical reviews, Melanie Yarbrough for overseeing production,
Rachel Head for copy editing, Rachel Monaghan for proofreading, Rebecca Demarest
for illustrations, Judy McConville for creating the index, Karen Montgomery for the
original sugar glider front cover design, Randy Comer for the latest book cover, and
everyone else too numerous to name who submitted errata and offered suggestions
for this new edition.
Preface | xxvii
Other documents randomly have
different content
they discussed people and differed about art, and agreed about
books and quarreled about politics and religion, and were wholly and
perilously content with one another and the situation.
On the afternoon of the fourth day the sun broke gloriously
through, and Darcy challenged Remsen to make the precipitous
ascent of the front of Red Hill.
Behold her, then, at the conclusion serenely overlooking the
lowland and the lake while her companion stretched out panting
behind her.
“This is a peak on the Siberian front,” she announced. “And I’m an
outpost.”
“What do you see, Sister Anne?”
“Wait and I’ll tell you. An aeroplane”—she pointed to a wheeling
crow above them—“has just signaled me—”
(“Caw,” said the crow; “Thank you,” said Darcy and threw the bird
a kiss.)
“—that a regiment is coming up from below. There’s the advance
guard.”
She pointed down the sheer rock. Remsen moved across and
looked over the edge. “That spider?” he inquired unimaginatively.
“He’s just pretending to be a spider. But he’s really a spy disguised
as a spider. Now the question is, Shall I drop this bomb on him?”
She held a pebble above the toiling crawler. “War is hell,” observed
Remsen lazily. “Why add to its horrors?”
“How far away it all seems!” said the girl dreamily. “Do you
suppose, over there, it’s beautiful and peaceful like this hillside one
day, and then the next—I guess I’ll let my spy spider live,” she broke
off, dropping her chin in her hand.
Remsen sat down at her side.
“What’s your soldier man like?” he asked abruptly.
“What? Who?” inquired the startled Darcy. “Oh, Monty!” Gloria’s
insufficient sketch came to her aid. “Why, he’s short and round and
roly-poly.”
“Then I don’t give a very exact imitation of him, do I?”
“Not very. And he’s red and fierce-looking, with a stubby, scrubby
mustache,” she added, augmenting Gloria’s description.
Her companion stared. “Not what I should call a particularly
enthusiastic portaiture.”
“Oh, but of course he’s awfully nice,” she made haste to amend.
“Not really a bit fierce, you know, but very brave and—and” (eagerly
casting about) “a lovely voice.”
“What kind?”
“Barytone.”
“And you sing together?” he asked gloomily.
“Oh, lots!”
“I suppose so.” He gathered some loose stones and began idly to
drop them over the rock’s crest.
“There! You’ve given the alarm to the spy,” she accused. “See him
wigwagging at you! Now he’ll go and report.”
“Darcy!”
“Well?”
“You don’t mind my calling you Darcy, do you?”
“N-n-no, I like it.”
“I wonder if you’ll mind what I’m going to say now.”
“I don’t believe I should mind anything you would say.”
“It’s about the little song. The one that you set right for me.”
“Our song.”
“Our song,” he repeated with a wistful emphasis on the pronoun.
“Darcy, you won’t sing that—to him—will you?”
“No,” she said. Her eyes were dimly troubled and would not meet
his. “I won’t sing that—to any one—again.”
“Thank you,” he said humbly.
“Oh, look!” she cried with an effort at gayety. “The enemy! They
approach. Let’s go and meet ’em.”
She jumped to her feet and pointed to a far stretch of the road
where four figures were slowly moving along.
“That means I’ve got to put on my infernal whiskers and wig!” he
groaned.
“Just think how long a vacation you’ve had from them,” she
reproached him.
“And my still more uncomfortable manners.”
“Tone them down a little,” she advised. “I think Holcomb and Paul
are just about ready to turn on the haughty Britisher, and rend him
limb from limb.”
“Don’t blame ’em,” he said lazily. “But they seem to be turning off
toward the village,” he added, peering down into the valley.
“And the girls are coming on,” said Darcy. “Probably they’ve got
the mail.”
“With foreign letters?” said Remsen jealously. “Did you leave a
forwarding address?” She shot a swift, indirect look at him. But he
was gazing out over the regally garbed forest spread below them.
“Come along!” she urged. “We must hurry. We’ll take the
Bungalow trail, and I’ll wait while you put on your Veyze outfit. Then
we’ll catch the girls on their return from the Farm.”
Having carried through the first part of this programme, they took
the road together and presently came upon the two brides. Maud
bore a folded newspaper as if it were a truncheon of official
authority. Her expression was stern and important. Helen was
obviously struggling with a tendency to hysterical excitement. Upon
catching sight of Darcy and her escort, Maud marched with an
almost military front, straight upon them, her fellow bride acting as
rear guard.
“Darcy,” said Maud, ignoring the now perfectly whiskered fiance, “I
should like to speak to you alone.”
A qualm of mingled intuition and caution warned Darcy.
“What about, Maud?” she asked.
“A private matter which your fiancé can hear later,” returned the
uncompromising Maud. “Please, Darcy,” added Helen.
“Not at all,” returned the girl with spirit.’ “Has it anything to do
with Monty?”
“It has a great deal to do with him,” was the grim response.
“Then he should hear it at the same time.”
“Haw! By all means. Haw!” confirmed the fiancé, bringing his
monocle to bear upon Maud and Helen in turn.
“Very well,” said Maud in a your-blood-be-on-your-own-head voice.
“Read that.”
She thrust the newspaper into Darcy’s hand, pointing to a penciled
paragraph on the front page. To Darcy’s eternal credit be it said, she
succeeded in preserving a calm and unperturbed face, while she
read the paragraph, and then passed it to her waiting fiancé.
It informed the world that, for distinguished service in the aerial
corps, the King of England had, on the previous day, personally
decorated Sir Montrose Veyze, Bart., of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire,
England.
CHAPTER XVI
F
OR the death, disappearance, or capture of Sir Montrose Veyze,
of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England, Darcy was duly
prepared, in a spirit of Christian fortitude and resignation. That
fame might mark him’ out, thus forcing the issue for her, was wholly
unforeseen. It took her completely aback. The Darcy of a year before
would have collapsed miserably under it. But this was a different
Darcy. She faced the accuser with a quiet smile, back of which her
thoughts ran desperately around in circles, like a bevy of little rabbits
cut off from cover.
“You’ve read what it says in the newspaper?” said Maud, in the
accents of a cross-examining counsel.
“Yes. Oh, certainly!”
“Then perhaps you can explain.”
Darcy shot a swift glance at the bogus Sir Montrose. He also was
smiling. Most illogically Darcy’s heart began to sing a little private
Hymn of Hate of its own. What did he mean by standing there with a
sickly grin on his silly face when the whole fabric of their mutual
pretense was being riddled?
(Herein she was ungrateful as well as illogical. The face was silly
because she had compelled him to make it so. As for the rest, the
smile was good enough of its kind. He was not smiling because he
felt like it, but to conceal the fact that he was doing some high-
pressure thinking of his own.)
From the smirking countenance of her ally, Darcy turned to the
lowering front of the enemy.
“Well, you see,” she said with an air of great candor, after
deliberately tearing out the paragraph, “it’s rather an involved
matter.”
“I don’t see anything involved about it,” returned the lofty and
determined Maud. “Who is this man?”
“Yes; who is he?” echoed Helen, coming mildly to her support.
From the corner of her eye the badgered girl could see the object
of the inquiry. Still smiling! It was too much. Then and there Darcy
committed that ignoble act known and reprehended in the higher
sporting circles, wherein Andy Dunne moves, as “passing the buck.”
“You tell them, Monty,” she said sweetly.
Of a great statesman, now dead, it has been written:
Cheated by treachery and beguiled by Fate,
Once in his life we well may call him great.
Thus with Mr. Jacob Remsen alias Sir Montrose Veyze. Out of
conscious nothing he had, in that precious moment’s respite, evoked
an instantaneous and full-fledged plan to meet the crisis.
Fixing upon Maud as the more formidable antagonist, he impaled
her on the beam of his monocle.
“Haw!” he ejaculated. “You’ve heard about the Veyze Succession, I
assume.”
“Never,” said Maud stoutly.
“What? Nevah heard of the King’s Judgment? Why, my deah lady,
we’re as well known as the Tower of London or the—the Crystal
Palace.”
“In America, you see,” explained the more pacific Helen, “these
things don’t get to us.”
“But I assuah you,” cried the other, turning his glassy regard upon
her, “your atrocious American press has been quite full of it from time
to time. Come, now! You’re spoofing me. You must have read of the
Veyze divided title. What?”
Hypnotized by the glare of the monocle, Helen’s imagination
inspired her to confess that she did vaguely recall something about it,
which was the more gratifying to the representative of the Veyzes in
that he had introduced the press feature on the inspiration of the
moment.
The less impressionable Maud was not to be diverted from the
main issue.
“Even if we knew all about your family, it would not explain Sir
Montrose Veyze being here in America at the same time that he is
being received by the King in London.”
“Wearing two swords. Doesn’t the press report mention that? It
should,” put in the Veyze representative conscientiously piling up
picturesque detail to embellish and fortify his case. “Don’t forget that,
please. It’s a Veyze prerogative.”
“Is it a Veyze prerogative to be in two places at once?” queried the
cross-examiner. “Or—there aren’t two of you, I suppose.”
“Of cawse!”
The accused delivered the answer in a tone of calm and wondering
contempt. Obviously he was incredulous that such ignorance as his
interrogator displayed could exist in a Christian country.
“Two Sir Montrose Veyzes? Of the same name and title?” Maud was
glaring, now.
“Of cawse! The famous Veyze twins. Though we’re not rahlly twins
any more, you understand.”
Under the calm and steady beam of the monocle, Maud weakened.
“What are you famous for?” she asked, more amenably.
“Because there are two of us to the divided title. Bally hard for an
American to understand, I’m afraid. It begins back in the early days
of the title, quite before Columbus landed the Puritans at Bunker Hill,
you know.”
“Columbus wasn’t a Puritan, dear,” corrected Darcy.
“No? Nevah heard anything against the man’s morals, that I can
recall.”
“Never mind Columbus,” said the interested Helen. “Do tell us
about the Veyzes.”
“Right-o! Two brothers were born—twins, d’ you see? There was
some natural confusion. Which was the heir—born first, you know?
Nobody could tell. The King was stayin’ at Veyze Holdings then for
the shootin’; very famous shootin’. The family referred it to him.
Would he play the part of Solomon and decide? His Majesty
graciously acceded to the request. He decreed that the title should
thenceforth be a dual one. It’s remained so ever since. We don’t
produce twins any more, but the two eldest sons of the line inherit
title and property jointly, and each carries two swords at court.
There’s Sir Montrose and Sir Montrose II. I’m II.”
“To get down to prose, how long will it cling?” she asked
thoughtfully.
“Allowing for inevitable official red tape, I should say anywhere
from twenty-four hours to a month.”
“Paul Wood has a cousin in the State Department.”
“In that case, nearer the twenty-four hours than the month.”
Darcy seated herself on a boulder and took her chin into her
cupped hands. “Let me think,” she murmured.
Remsen watched her as she considered and would have given
much to be able to read her mind. Presently she looked up.
“Do you mind leaving me here?” she inquired.
“Yes,” he said.
“Why?”
“I always mind leaving you. It gives me a lost feeling.”
She nodded. “Yes; I know what you mean. I feel it, too.”
“Do you?” he cried eagerly.
“You’ve been so wonderfully good to me all through this queer
mess,” she supplemented, a little hurriedly.
He disregarded this. “Besides,” he said, “I’m afraid this is going to
be our last walk.” She looked her startled question.
“What I’d like, of course,” he pursued, “is to stay here and face it
through with you. But that’s going to be worse for you than if I went,
isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid it is.”
“Then it’s up to me to leave.”
“But what if they find you and take you back to New York?”
“I’ve got to take the risk. They’re pretty likely to find out about me
here if they undertake a Veyze investigation.”
“That’s true,” she cried. “I’ve made this place impossible for you as
a refuge.”
“Not you. I did it myself. I’d do it again—a thousand times—for
these last four days.”
“When would you go?”
“To-night. Eleven o’clock. Meredith.”
“Wait till to-morrow.”
His heart leaped. “We’re to have this evening together?”
“No,” she said gently. “I want this evening to myself. I have to
think.”
“I’m a marvelous stimulus to thought,” he pleaded.
She shook an obstinate head.
“Might I walk back to the Farm with you?”
“No; please. I’d rather you didn’t.” She rose and laid her hand in
his. “You’ve been a very parfait, gentil knight,” she said.
“Darcy!”
But she was already swinging up the hill with that free, lithe,
rhythmic pace of hers. At the summit she turned and waved. For one
brief second he saw her sweet, flushed profile clear against the
sweet, flushed sky. It disappeared leaving earth and heaven dim and
void.
Remsen turned blindly homeward. He knew, at last, what had
happened to him.
CHAPTER XVII
A
LL that afternoon and well into the evening, Darcy Cole, at the
Farmhouse, sat and wrote and wrote and wrote.
All that afternoon and well into the evening, Jack Remsen,
at the Bungalow, sat and smoked and mused and let his pipe go out
and relighted it and mused again.
All that afternoon and well into the evening, the four amateur
sleuths at the Lodge waited for a reply from Washington which didn’t
come.
At a point a mile or so above these human processes a large, cold
cloud sprung a million leaks and sifted down a considerable quantity
of large, soft snowflakes, and continued so to do until the air was
darkened and the earth whitened with them.
Through this curtain, after a time, frightened but determined,
tramped Darcy Cole. Through this curtain tramped also Jack
Remsen, deep in such trouble of heart as he had never known
before, and most undetermined. Both were headed for the same
spot, the mailbox at the entrance from the main road to the byway
which leads up to the Bungalow.
Having started considerably earlier than Jack, Darcy got there
first. She opened the box, dropped in her note, and proceeded to
another mail-box some distance along the road and opposite the
Island, where she deposited a second epistle. That left her two and
a half hours in which to make the ten miles of dark, heavy road to
Meredith. If it were too little, she had learned of a trail through
meadowland and forest which would cut off nearly two miles. Darcy
didn’t like woods at night—most of us don’t, if we’re honest with
ourselves—but she proposed to catch that train.
Now, an all-wise government has ordained that upon rural delivery
boxes there shall be a metal flag which works automatically with the
raising and the lowering of the lid. Upon reaching the Bungalow box,
shortly after the wayfarer from the Farmhouse had passed, Jack
Remsen observed with surprise that the flag, which he knew to have
been down, was raised.
“How’s this?” inquired the wayfarer, addressing the box. “I’ve been
here and got the noon delivery, and the postman comes only once a
day. Yet you’re flying signals.”
As the box did not respond, Remsen opened it and felt inside.
Darcy’s note rewarded his explorations. By the light of successive
matches and at the cost of scorched fingers, he read it:
Good-bye, Knight. Your service is over. It has been an ungrateful
one. But I am more grateful than I can say. You must not go. You
must stay. I have written to Helen—she is the kind one—and told her
about it; just how I dragged you into it to take the real Sir
Montrose’s place. I had to tell her who you were. But your secret
won’t be betrayed. So you won’t have to go away. You’ll be safe
here. I’m glad. I like to think of you here. It’s been good—hasn’t it?
Perhaps when you are able to come back to New York I’ll see you at
Gloria’s some time.
I can’t say a millionth part of what I want to. I couldn’t even if
there were time. You’ve been so good to me—so good. And all
you’ve had for it is trouble. I’m sorry.
Good-night, Knight. D. C.
“Even if there were time.” As has been indicated, Jack Remsen’s
mind could, on occasion, work swiftly.
Time for what? Why should she be pressed for time? Obviously,
because she was going away. And she would leave that note only
just before her departure. That could mean only the eleven o’clock
train from Meredith: the train he had intended taking before she
asked him to postpone his departure until the morrow. Of course; so
that he should get her note! On her way to the station she would
leave the explanatory and damnatory letter for Helen Wood at the
Island. Well, it would be a long time before that letter reached its
addressee!
Examination of the blanketed ground confirmed his reasoning.
There were the small, clear-set footprints, infinitely pathetic in the
black wildness of the night. As he well knew from experience,
catching up with Darcy Cole when she was set on getting
somewhere was a job for the undivided attention of the briskest
pedestrian. He set out along the road at a dogtrot.
His first stop was for the purpose of committing a felony,
punishable by several years in the Federal penitentiary. It took him
about a second to complete the crime, and, as he left the rifled mail-
box behind, his inside pocket quite bulged with the fat letter wherein
Darcy had set forth her circumstantial but by no means complete
confession which was to exculpate her partner and inculpate herself.
Remsen’s heart beat a little faster under that bulky epistle with its
contents of courage and self-sacrifice.
At the door of a late-autumnal cottage he borrowed a flash. With
this he could plainly discern the trail of the little feet, blurred but not
obliterated by the snowfall. His watch indicated a quarter after nine.
He jogged on with high hopes.
On a long, straight, level stretch he let himself out for a burst of
speed. Perhaps, from the summit of the hill in which it terminated,
he might catch a glimpse of her, for the moon was now trying its
best to send a struggling ray through the flying wrack of cloud.
Tenderly he pictured to himself the vision of her; head up to the
storm, the strong, lithe shoulders squared, skimming with that easy,
effortless pace of hers that had in it all the grace of perfectly
controlled vigor.
Halfway across the open space he slackened up to cast the light of
the flash on the road.
No footmarks were visible.
Remsen cried out, with the shock of his dismay. He cast about him
on all sides. No result.
Struggling to keep cool, he turned back, going slowly, careful to
miss no trace which intent scrutiny might discover. A quarter of a
mile back he picked up the trail where she had left the road to cross
a brooklet and take to the open fields. Her object he guessed; to cut
across a broad and heavily wooded hill, thus saving herself some
two miles of travel where the road took a wide double curve.
Eased in his breathing by the enforced slowness of the search, he
was now able to accelerate his pace. Halfway up the open hillside a
sudden fury of storm descended, lapping him in whirling darkness.
Ahead of him stretched the dead-black line of woodland. More by
luck than direction, he came upon a gateway, and thus set foot to
the forest path, less difficult to discern in such conditions than the
open trail of the meadows. With his light he could follow it quite
easily. But when he thought of Darcy, lightless and inexperienced in
woodcraft, with only her strength and her courage to help her,
wandering in that wilderness, his spirit sickened with terror. The
numbed fingers of the hand which gripped the flash warned him of
dropping temperature. One might easily freeze on such a night, in
the open. Worst of all, the marks in the snow were now all but
invisible under the fresh fall.
He blundered desperately onward, shouting her name into the
gale as he went. There was an answering call. He threw his light on.
She rose from a fallen tree-trunk into the arc of radiance.
“I’ve been lost,” she said, and walked straight to his arms.
Just for the comfort and safety and relief of it she clung to him,
with no other or further thought than that where he was no harm
could reach her. But now that she was found, Remsen’s self-control
broke under the reaction. His arms closed about her. With a shock of
sweetness, amazement, and terror she felt his lips on hers—and
answered them. For the briefest instant only. The thought of Gloria
pierced through the rapture of the moment, a poisoned dart. She
thrust herself back from him, her hands on his breast.
“Go away!” she sobbed. “You’ve no right. You know you’ve no
right!”
As she had thought of Gloria, so now he thought of the Briton
oversea, fighting in his country’s service.
“I know,” he groaned. “Forgive me.”
She stood back from him, staring with bewildered, dismayed eyes.
“I forgot for the moment that I’m only a counterfeit,” he pleaded.
“You forgot—many things,” said she slowly.
“Forgive me, Darcy,” he said again. “It—it swept me off my feet—
the sweetness of it. It was base—dishonorable—anything you want
to call it; but when I felt you in my arms—”
“Oh, don’t!” she wailed.
“Will it make it better or worse if I tell you that I love you as I
never loved or thought I could love any woman?”
“Worse! Worse! Infinitely worse!”
“This is the end of me,” he said. He spoke quietly and in a flat,
even tone as a man might speak who knew that he was giving up
everything in life worth having. “I’ll not offend again. But—after I’d
kissed you—you had to know. I couldn’t let you think it anything less
than it was, the going out to you of a heart that I could no longer
control.”
“In dishonor!”
“If you will have it so. The dishonor is mine. You are untouched by
it.... Now, let us get to other matters. Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Then you can follow me back?” he said. “Where?”
“To the Farmhouse.”
“I’ll never go back to the Farmhouse.”
“You must. I’m going away on this train.”
“What good would that do? Haven’t you read my note to you?”
“Of course. Otherwise I shouldn’t have got on your trail.”
“Then you must know that I’ve written the whole thing to Helen
Wood, and even if I wanted to go back, now—”
“Dismiss that letter from your mind. I got it, on my way here.”
“You took my letter to Helen? Did you read it?”
“Do you think me dishonorable in everything?” he returned quietly.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” cried the girl impetuously. “I don’t think you
dishonorable. I know you’re not. I don’t know what to think or do.”
“Take this light and hurry back to the Farmhouse. I’ve still got time
for the train. Or I’ll take you back and make the morning train.”
“One thing I cannot and will not do: spend another night at the
Farm.”
“Is that your last word?”
“Yes.” Obstinacy itself was in the monosyllable.
“Then I’ll go with you to Meredith.”
“I won’t let you.”
“I’ll go,” he retorted in a tone which ended that discussion.
Under his guidance and in silence they regained the main road. At
Center Harbor he succeeded in getting a team to take them the rest
of the way. Not until the end of the journey did Darcy speak to him.
“What shall you do now?”
“I don’t know. Go somewhere,” said he gloomily.
“You must go back.”
“Boulder Brook—without you?” he said passionately.
“But where else can you go?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
They stood in silence until her train pulled in.
“I shan’t see you again, shall I?” he said wretchedly.
“You’ve made it impossible. Oh, why did you do it?” she wailed
softly.
With no further word she turned from him and went into the car.
Remsen stood, dazed with misery. Forward, something was shunted
from an express car with a heavy crash. There was a babel of
voices, a moment’s delay. Darcy flashed out upon the steps again,
her eyes starry. Remsen jumped to meet her. She caught his hands
in hers with a swift, forgiving little pressure.
“I couldn’t leave you so,” she said tremulously. “You’ve been too
good to me. Good-bye, and—forget.”
Before he could answer she was gone again.
Until the tail-light of the train glimmered into obscurity around the
curve, Remsen stood uncovered in the gale. Then he turned to the
miles of lonely road.
CHAPTER XVIII
D
ARCY, in her berth, sat huddled up and wide-eyed. She knew
at last what had happened to her. The burning memory of
that kiss in the woods had left nothing unrevealed to a soul
as frank with itself as Darcy’s had grown to be. She knew, too, what
she had to face. There was no doubt or hesitancy in her thoughts,
no weak attempt to justify herself or find an easy way out. If it had
been any one but Gloria Greene whose happiness was at stake,
Gloria who had picked her up from the scrap-heap of waste and
made a living, pulsating, eager human creature of her, Darcy might
have fought for her own hand. But how could a man who had loved
Gloria Greene, and whom Gloria loved, care seriously for any other
woman on earth? No; this was only a sudden, unreckonable
infatuation on Jack Remsen’s part.... Then she recalled the look in
his eyes when they parted, and knew that her conscience was lying
to her heart. In any case, her course was clear. She must be game.
In her deep trouble her thoughts turned to Gloria, the wise, kind
counsellor, the safe refuge. But she would not do for this crisis! To
betray Remsen to her—that was unthinkable, and nothing short of
the whole truth would serve with Gloria. Darcy knew that she must
fight it out alone. Never, not even in the old, dead days, had she felt
so alone.
Human nature being what it is, there is nothing strange in the fact
that, on her return to New York, Darcy shrank from meeting Gloria.
Although the girl’s conscience absolved her, except for that one,
instinctive lapse when she had been caught off her guard, her sore
heart pleaded guilty to the self-brought charge of a lasting disloyalty.
With the thrill of Jack Remsen’s kiss still in her veins, how could she
face the woman to whom Remsen owed his allegiance, the woman
who, moreover, had been the kindest, most effectual, most unselfish
friend of her own unbefriended life?
Yet there remained to be concluded the obsequies of Sir Montrose
Veyze, of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England. Those remains, of
unblessed memory, must positively be removed from the premises
before they gave rise to further and even more painful
complications. Darcy experienced the grisly emotions of a murderer
with an all-too-obvious corpse to dispose of. First of all, Gloria’s
absolution from the promise of secrecy must be obtained, which she
would doubtless be more than ready to accord, now that Sir
Montrose had become too heavy a burden to carry; also Gloria’s
advice and aid if she would give it. Nerving herself for the encounter,
Darcy went to see the actress and told her the whole (if she herself
was to be believed) disastrous tale.
Gloria was too shrewd to believe quite that far. There were
obvious hesitancies, blank spaces, and reservations wherever the
name and deeds of Mr. Jacob Remsen, alias Sir Montrose Veyze II,
or in his own proper person, entered into the narrative. And there
was a something in the girl’s eyes, deep down where the warm gray
was lighted to warmer blue, which hadn’t been there before. It
completed the woman in her. With an inner flush of creative pride
Gloria communed with herself upon the new miracle:
“This is a wonderful and lovable thing that I have made.”
Instinctive honesty compelled her, however, to add: “But somebody
else has given the finishing touch.”
She was too keen an observer not to suspect who her fellow
creative artist was. Being of the ultra-blessed who hold their tongues
until it is time to speak, Gloria made no comment upon this phase,
but set her mind singly to the problem in hand as presented by
Darcy’s recital. “It’s time to own up,” was her decision.
“I suppose so,” agreed the girl. “I don’t look forward to telling
Maud.”
“Let me handle Maud.”
“Would you, Gloria? You are good. However well you do it,
though,” she added resentfully, “I suppose I’ll be ‘Poor Darcy’ again
without even the compensation of being ‘Such a nice girl.’”
“Do you feel like ‘Poor Darcy’?”
“No.”
“Do you look like ‘Poor Darcy’?”
The girl glanced at the long studio mirror back of her. “No, I
don’t,” she replied, and two dimples came forward and offered
corroborative testimony.
“Then whom is the joke on?”
The dimples vanished. “On me,” said their erstwhile proprietor.
“Don’t be an imbecile!” adjured her mentor. “Can’t help it,”
returned Darcy dolefully. “I’ve got the habit.”
“Break it. Hark to the voice of Pure Reason (that’s me). As long as
you were ‘Poor Darcy,’ you had to invent a fiancé or go without,
didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And your invention was sure to be a regular old Frankenstein
monster, and to come back and devour you as soon as you were
found out.”
“I can hear the clanking of his joints this minute!”
“You can’t. He isn’t there. If you were still ‘Poor Darcy,’ there’d be
no hope for you. You’re not. You’re something totally different.”
“That’s your view of it,” returned the dispirited Darcy. “But to other
—”
“It’s anybody’s view that isn’t blind as a bat! Half the men you
meet are crazy about you. Aren’t they?”
“I haven’t met many, lately,” said Darcy demurely.
“You met plenty at our party. Even Maud and Helen saw the
effect. Their eyes bunged out!”
“I don’t see how their eyes bunging out is going to help explain Sir
Montrose Veyze I, let alone Sir Montrose Veyze II.”
“Why worry, when I’m here to take the burden from you? I
propose,” said Miss Greene relishingly, “to tell those girls the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
“Gloria! They’ll pass it on and I’ll be the laughing-stock—”
“Will they! I dare ’em to pass it on!”
“Why shouldn’t they?” cried the girl. “It’s just the sort of thing that
Maud would revel in.”
“Allowing that she could get away with it, you’re right. She
couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t make people believe it, you mean?”
“Never. Never in the world!”
“But it’s true!”
“Dear and lovely innocence! Do you think that helps it to get itself
believed? Besides, the main part of it isn’t true.”
“I mean it’s true that it isn’t true, and if Maud tells the truth about
what isn’t true—”
“Come out of that skein of metaphysical wool, kitten,” laughed
Gloria. “You’re tangled. Here’s what isn’t true; that you’re ‘Poor
Darcy’ who has to get lovers out of books for lack of ’em in real life.”
“But I have been.”
“All right. Let Maud tell the people that used to know you, and
make them believe it. There’s only a few of them and they don’t
count. As for trying it on any one else, all she’ll get will be a
reputation for green-eyed jealousy. How would anybody convince
Jack Remsen, for instance” (Darcy winced, and Gloria’s quick sense
caught it), “that you had to invent an imaginary adorer because you
couldn’t get a real one? No, indeed! The evidence is all against it
from Exhibit A, Darcy’s eyes, down to Exhibit Z, Darcy’s smart little
boots. For an unattractive girl, your little effort of the imagination
would be a pathetic, desperate, ridiculous invention, with the laugh
on the inventor. For an attractive girl, it’s just a festive little joke.
Don’t you see how it works out? The pretty girl (that’s you) can have
all the adorers she wants, but she prefers to take in her friends by
inventing one. Is the joke on the girl or her friends? One guess.
Why, oh, why,” concluded Gloria addressing the Scheme of the World
in a burst of self-admiration, “wasn’t I born a professor of logic
instead of an actress?”
“It sounds reasonable,” confessed Darcy. “But will Maud and Helen
be clever enough to see it?”
“Probably not.”
“Then—”
“Therefore I shall point it out to them in my inimitable and
convincing style, with special hints as to the perils and
disadvantages of getting a reputation for jealousy of a better-looking
girl!”
“Then that’s all settled,” said Darcy with a sigh. “Now what about
Sir Montrose? The real Sir Montrose, I mean.”
“Well, what about him?”
“Suppose he should come over here and hear about it?”
“He won’t. He’s engaged to an English girl. I’ve just heard.”
“How nice and considerate of him! You know, Gloria, I could
almost love that man.”
“Could you? What about the bogus Sir Montrose?” asked the
actress significantly.
Darcy flushed faintly. “Well, what about him?” she echoed.
“How much does he know?”
“Not very much. Do you think I ought to tell him?”
“Does the child expect me to manage her conscience as well as
her affairs!” cried the actress. “If any one is to tell him, you’re the
one.
“I suppose so,” assented Darcy, spiritlessly, and made her
farewells in no more cheerful frame of mind than when she had
come, albeit one load was off her shoulders.
CHAPTER XIX
F
OR a week or more Gloria neither saw nor heard from the girl.
At the end of that time she did, to her surprise, encounter the
erstwhile bogus Sir Montrose without his hirsute adornments
and in his proper person of Mr. Jacob Remsen, sauntering idly along
the Park. Hailing him, she took him into her taxi. Mr. Remsen was
not looking his customary sunny self.
“Did the law’s minions catch you in spite of your whiskers?” she
asked.
“No. Case was compromised. So I’ve come back.”
“And what are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to work.”
“Work! You?” said the actress with unfeigned and unflattering
surprise. “Why? What’s the answer?”
“Ambition,” replied Mr. Remsen in a lifeless voice.
“Sounds more like penal servitude,” commented Gloria. “And what
is to be the scene of your violent endeavors?”
“Ask the Government,” he replied wearily. “Washington, maybe. Or
perhaps San Francisco or Savannah. Or right here in New York, for
all I know.”
“Jerusalem and Madagascar
And North and South Amerikee,”
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